Abstract:

Ocean wave energy has the potential to support approximately 10% of domestic and global electricity demand. Despite considerable investment over the past decade, however, wave energy is unlikely to make a material contribution to domestic or global energy supplies unless new technologies with significantly lower capital costs and higher reliability than todays leading technologies can be developed and commercialized. Oscilla Power, Inc. (OPI) has demonstrated the potential of a no moving parts technology to provide significantly lower costs than conventional ocean energy technologies. In this project, OPI will demonstrate additional power take-off scale and system level innovations that can further reduce the cost of and increase the reliability of this new, potentially game-changing technology. Development and commercialization of the technology has the potential to significantly impact the renewable energy landscape by dramatically reducing the cost, improving the robustness and broadening the availability of wave energy. Successful development and commercialization of the technology will improve the nations competitiveness while reducing global emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.